1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a nail ornament. In particular, the present invention relates to an artificial nail overlay for providing a nail design as well as for improving adherence and durability of artificial nails. The present invention also relates to a method of dying and printing the artificial nail overlay.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The term "overlay" employed in the present application means a strip, preferably a fabric type, attached to an upper portion of a natural and artificial nail for improving adherence and durability of the artificial nail attached to the natural nail. U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,426 issued on Aug. 20, 1985 to Massey discloses such an example, which was referred to in the present application.
Attention has been paid on nails as part of a human body according to the development of cosmetic industry in modern society. Long nails colored brightly with special care are recognized as an essential element of cosmetology which enhances femininity and beauty. Accordingly, modern women tend to spend more time for beautifying their own nails. However, it is practically difficult for most of the working women to grow their nails long. Long nails are apt to be broken and difficult to take care of.
One solution that can replace the long natural nails is utilizing artificial nails covering the entire portion of natural nails, or cosmetic ornaments, i.e., tips attached to upper end portions of artificial nails.
It is well known in the art to attach plastic strips or artificial nails having shapes and sizes similar to those of the long natural nails to lower portions of the natural nails to increase the length of the natural nails for cosmetic purposes. Conventionally, such a disguise takes a form of using sheets or strips composed of injection-molded plastic materials attached to lower portions of the natural nails on which an adhesive comprising ethyl-cyanoaclates, etc. is applied. Such sheets or strips are manufactured for commercial purposes to have diverse widths of 6 to 13 kinds to conform with different widths of natural nails and to have a predetermined curvature so that the concave faces of their lower portions extending the finger lines match with the convex faces of the upper portions of the natural nails. Extended tips of the artificial nails can range from 0.76 cm to 3.81 cm, and their hems are curved to conform with the curvatures of the growing natural nails.
Attachment of artificial nails are generally performed by professional manicurists. As illustrated in FIG. 1, a plastic artificial nail 4 having a shape of an ordinary human nail is attached to the lower portion of the natural nail on which an adhesive is to be applied. The artificial nail is longitudinally extended from that position to have a predetermined length. The extended artificial nail is cut by a nail cutter to have a tip of predetermined length. The surface and hem of the plastic strip are smoothed by a file or a buffer.
The artificial nail described above is composed of plastic resin to have elasticity. If its tip is too long, however, the artificial nail is apt to be broken or separated from the natural nail.
To overcome this drawback, overlays such as silk strips, linen strips or glass fabric strips are attached to upper portions of artificial nails. FIG. 2 shows a process of providing an overlay.
Referring to FIG. 2, an overlay 6 is placed to cover a natural and artificial nail. An adhesive 8 is sufficiently applied on the upper portion of the overlay 6 for its full adhesion to the nail. Once the adhesive 8 is hardened, the spare portion of the overlay 6 is cut by a scissor. If necessary, an overlay may be attached to the nail after being cut in a predetermined shape. The nail is once again smoothed by a file, etc. Attachment of the artificial nail is finalized by coating a polish manicure of an acrylic component on the smoothed nail.
Pictures or patterns are often drawn on the surface of an overlay to diversify or beautify an artificial nail attached to a natural nail.
FIG. 3 shows a method of drawing pictures or patterns on the surface of an overlay by a manicurist with a brush or a stick by utilizing ink, paint, manicure or shining materials, etc. for the client who wishes decoration thereon. This method, however, has a drawback of requiring a special treatment by a manicurist which incurs an expense because the user cannot easily draw pictures on her own nails.
As described above, the process of attaching an artificial nail to a lower portion of a natural nail is quite time-consuming. Particularly, printing a design on a nail for additional beautification incurs an additional time and expense.
Further, the coated French manicure is peeled off after a certain period of time, e.g., after 3 or 4 days, thereby requiring repeated coatings.
To resolve the above-described problem, a method was conceived, in which the user can design desired pictures or patterns on her own nails, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5. FIG. 4 illustrates a method of attaching a pre-patterned sticker 10 to a nail. FIGS. 5A and 5B illustrate a method of transferring a picture on the surface of a nail by utilizing a water decal paper 12. According to this method, one of the water decalling papers, on which a predetermined picture or pattern is printed, is separated from the others by means of water, and is placed on a nail to be coated by transparent manicure. Nail decorations utilizing such water decal papers not only saves labor, time and cost but also have an advantage of expressing subtlety, which cannot be expressed by direct drawings on the nail, or pictures of original colors such as photographs.
FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate a so-called "French manicure," a method of manicuring in white color an end portion of a nail and manicuring the entire nail with light pink color.